Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Caleb, Peter (Miles Teller), and Christina venture beyond the wall surrounding Chicago as they go searching for what is left out there after the message from the box (at the end of INSURGENT) is played.  Evelyn, Four’s mother, tries to keep everyone within the city and enforce mob justice on those under the regime of the former leader Jeanne.  Tris and company find the Bureau of Genetic Affairs lead by David (Jeff Daniels).  Can David be trusted as the people outside Chicago look for Genetically Pure people as they look down as anyone genetically modified as damaged?

 

ALLEGIANT is loosely based on the third and final book in the DIVERGENT series (where Summit has decided to adapt the book as two movies with Part 2- ASCENDANT to be released next year).   It has great action scenes, but it has bad science and it is a bad science fiction movie.  The actors deliver their lines as best as they can, but the script is a mess as it seems like they use the book’s plot as merely a suggestion at times.  The land outside Chicago looks like a red sand toxic land with toxic rain which doesn’t make much sense since the big war was 200 years ago unless the reduced population land of the future are super polluters compared to today’s world.   Then you have futuristic aircraft with energy bubbles which would waste lots of energy.  I think the writers and producers just wanted to create what they think is a post-apocalyptic dystopia whether science is right or not.  I don’t think they give a damn about the science in this science fiction movie.

 

The third movie in the DIVERGENT movie series is a  set-up for a final conflict in ASCENDANT which makes me wonder if they would have been better served in making the book one movie instead of two (plus I heard they may be slash the final film’s budget by a few million before shooting begins).   The first two movies had a uniform look and story in tone while ALLEGIANT is a total 180 (even more than the book) from the first two movies (DIVERGENT and INSURGENT).  They also don’t focus enough on the group called the Allegiant as they do in the book.   The third movie is passable enough to watch, but it may not hold enough for repeat viewings like DIVERGENT and INSURGENT does.  I do hope the writers and producers do manage to make a good finale with ASCENDANT, but all is hope if the script is anything like the script for ALLEGIANT.

 

 

This review is ©3-23-2016 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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